Cardinal Athletics Teams Up with Be the Match
March 28, 2014 | Women's Basketball
March 28, 2014
Louisville, Ky. - The University of Louisville has teamed up with the Be the Match initiative to help promote Bone Marrow Awareness and to help find a donor for Nicholaus Van Arsdale, the son of a Cardinal Athletics employee. The University will staff 10 events, including the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament on Sunday, March 30 with the finale at the football spring game on April 11.
The hope is to raise awareness, donor registrants and funds for battling blood cancers. There will be staffed tables at the entrance for each selected event, stocked with plenty of information to hand out. The swab kits will be available for those that decide registering is right for them and there will also be donation boxes for anyone inclined to financially help the cause.
Van Arsdale was first diagnosed January 2004 with TCell ALL (Acute Lymphoblast Leukemia). He underwent three and a half years of chemotherapy and radiation and finished treatments May 2007. He was cancer free until January 2014, when he was diagnosed with a relapse in the same blood cancer and was admitted to Kosair Children's Hospital on February. He underwent a biopsy of a mass in his face which turned out to be Leukemia cells.
He spent five weeks in Kosair, unergoing intensive chemotherapy. Van Arsdale was released on March 9 and is currently at home undergoing outpatient chemotherapy. The current plan is for him to have outpatient chemotherapy for about five weeks while a bone marrow donor is identified. When a donor is identified, he will be admitted to Kosair for a minimum of five to six weeks to receive intensive chemotherapy and radiation and then will have a bone marrow transplant. He will have no immunity and will be in isolation at that time.
"I beat cancer once before, and I can beat it again," said very poignant Van Varsdale. "I believe God healed me once and He will do it again."
Below is a list of staffed events: Friday, March 28
Baseball 6pm
Saturday, March 29
Women's Tennis Noon
Sunday, March 30
Women's Basketball Regionals 12 & 2:30pm
Tuesday, April 1
Women's Basketball Regional Finals 7pm
Friday, April 4th
Men's Tennis 3pm
Saturday, April 5th
Baseball 1pm
Tuesday, April 8th - University Run Event (UofL SAB & Alpha Phi Omega)
Triple Threat Donor Drive 9am - 8pm at the Red Barn & SAC Multipurpose Room
Friday, April 11th
UofL Spring Football Game
For more information on the Be the Match initiative you can log onto their website at www.bethematch.org .
